What we do to others shapes what we become. This is the take of Asma Barlas, a retired professor of politics in New York, on why America is what it is.
Writing in Al Jazeera, she thinks Americans should not be shocked by the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan 6 because this is what it did elsewhere. True, President Donald Trump made the America we see today. But so did America make him and others who have gone before.
As this Leader went to press, the United States was at its crazy best. Again. On Sunday, US B-52 bombers were flying over the Middle East, flexing its muscle on behalf of Israel. The US says the bomber mission is in response to two Iranian ballistic missiles landing within 160km of a US aircraft carrier. But why is the aircraft carrier near the waters of Iran?
Pushing Iran into an unnecessary war like it did in Iraq? We will know by noon today when the presidency is supposed to change hands. Temperamental Trump seems to want to go out with a bang when he should go out with a whimper. He sure has friends in Pentagon.
For America, the axis of evil is not out there somewhere but within. Let's not be too quick to divide the world into the "primitive" and "civilised" nations. Colour or culture isn't the issue. We all have our world views. Each world view affords a way of seeing. We should not go to war because of this. Nor should the US rush to dismantle a regime because it is not to its liking.
If the Americans do not have the right to vote global governments in by ballots, they surely do not have the right to vote them in by bullets. This is a principle the US continues to ignore as it did on Sept 11, 1973 in Chile. On the fateful day, then US president Richard Nixon brought down the democratically elected government of president Salvador Allende in a military coup, killing him in the process.
Writing in The Guardian on Sept 11, 2018, Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean-American playwright and academic, put it thus: "The reign of terror that followed was to last for almost 17 years, comprising extrajudicial executions and disappearance, torture and imprisonment on a vast scale, exile and widespread hounding of dissidents." This was no accident, Dorfman insists. "It was a way of teaching millions of Allende's followers that they should never again dare to question the way power was organised and wealth was distributed in the world." Now we know why the US aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers are in the Middle East — distribution of power and wealth. Not to end terrorism as the US often claims. The latter is just a pretext.
This became clear in April 2006 when the National Intelligence Estimate's report titled "The Trends in Global Terrorism: The implications for the United States" was leaked, one heading to the editorial desk of The Guardian. According to the report, the US invasion of Iraq was central to fomenting terrorism throughout the world. The report was never made public because it contradicted American discourse, or even the Western one, which links terrorism to culture.
Even today, America doesn't want to be found out. At noon today, the US will be offered a chance to do good to others. It must take it. Because no one likes an ugly America. Not even Americans.